#ofc later this whole dynamic gets romantical but

[earl-grey-love]

Early on into their friendship, Sunny starts sleeping in Levi's room quite often. It originally happens as an accident like she falls asleep while watching anime/him game late at night, and Levi is too awkward to wake him up, but it soon becomes a normal habit between them.

Not in his bathtub (yes, Levi sleeps in a bathtub) because it's too small, and also, there's no reason for Sun to be in there at that point. But there will be a pile of like pillows and blankets in the area in front of his TV, and that's where he ends up sleeping fairly often.

[amywritesthings]

Operation: Battlepass (AKA the Totally Awesome Plan to Play Wingman by Yuuji Itadori) / a Choso x OFC story

After choosing to live together as brothers, Yuuji decides to introduce Choso to the wonderful world of gaming. What he didn't expect is for Choso to fall head over heels for his online friend. Naturally, hijinks must ensue, and the gang comes up with a plan to make this romcom a reality.

word count: 3k (part one of ??) tags: au - canon divergence, fluff, romantic comedy, told in yuuji's pov, ultimate big brother!choso, gaming, online friendshipcredit: dividers by @saradika-graphics

read on ao3 here.

PART ONE: THE INTRODUCTION

disclaimer: this is a very crack slice of life story. everyone's alive. itadori is friends with an adult through online gaming. their dynamic is very much 'you're a kid and i have to protect you from weirdos in gaming lobbies'. iris is inspired by my own older online friends growing up. it's nothing nefarious.

Yuuji Itadori has never been a wingman.

Well — kind of.

If you scratch all of the times that Itadori went along with the ‘Save Megumi’ plan conjured up by the brilliant (and twisted) minds of Gojo-sensei and Kugisaki, then he’s technically never been a wingman.

Come to think of it, he’s never really given the act of dating much thought.

It isn’t like he’s ever had much skin in the game. 

Itadori’s never had a partner, for one.

Fushiguro is smooth enough to flirt without anyone’s help, two.

Kugisaki can be a little intimidating all on her own, three.

So it leaves… well, Itadori to cheer on his perfectly-capable friends as they navigate what it means to be a teenager.

It also leaves him wondering if one day he’ll know the tv-show-butterfly feeling of helping two lonely souls get together.

(He really should focus on his own love life, but given the whole Sukuna ordeal? That’s a mess he hasn’t quite ironed out yet.)

Enter: Choso, his alleged big brother from another mother.

(Or another father? That’s another thing he’s gotta iron out. More at 11.)

Getting a two-bedroom bachelor pad with the guy you only met, like, a few weeks ago wasn't on his year-end bingo card. 

"Really?" If Fushiguro and Nobara question something simultanously, that usually spells danger.

"Yeah!" Itadori exclaims, sipping on his tea. "I mean, why not, right?"

"Wasn't he the guy trying to kill you?" Fushiguro grunts.

"Then he changed his mind on a dime and demanded he protect you with every blood cell in his body?" Nobara adds, lips trembling from her attempt to hide a smile at her pun.

(Neither of the boys catch it.)

Itadori grimaces. "Well, when you put it that way..."

Fushiguro leans back. "Trying to kill you—"

Nobara leans forward. "—to defending you—"

They come together again, and Itadori sinks in his booth.

"—in a few hours."

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Itadori whines. "But it'll be fine. We're great pals and figured it out. He's totally normal now."

So normal that Choso's in the booth at the other end of the restaurant, sipping a coffee black with a newspaper upside-down, waiting to take Itadori and his friends to the shopping district later.

(It's a little weird admittedly, but Itadori thinks it's endearing. He cares!)

So, yeah.

He ditched living at Jujutsu High in order to move in with his brother under the approval of his instructor.

Maybe it was a hasty decision, but Itadori will take the blame on that one.

Call it excitement or stupidity, he doesn’t mind.

After spending a lot of his life wishing he had a sibling of his own, it’s kinda cool to live a brother.

Not even a brother, but a big brother who takes his job very seriously.

For starters, Itadori always gets to order wherever he wants for takeout dinner, which never got to happen back at Jujutsu High.

Fushiguro used to be apathetic about what they’d order, which meant Kugisaki took the liberty in steamrolling every decision.

Now?

Itadori gets to show Choso every single one of his favorite foods and then some.

The guy doesn’t eat much — apparently something to do with being a curse, not that Itadori judges — but he thoroughly enjoys the nights watching Choso squint over a takeout box trying to figure out what the heck is in the thing.

It’s nice teaching someone else the ropes, rather than feeling clueless in his own life.

He shows Choso how to cook; how to clean, though they’re both fairly great at lifting furniture to get into those hard-to-reach spots; how to pay bills over the internet — or just to pay for bills in general.

However, there is one important item in life he has to show his big brother:

Video games.

Apparently all he ever played when he was with Jogo, Brains, and Mahito were board games.

Snooze.

Boring.

“Today is your lucky day,” he tells the man with tightly-coiled space buns one day while Choso's watching television.

Itadori thrusts a coveted console controller into his view with excitement.

Choso blinks down at it with confusion.

“Because I — Yuuji Itadori, your little bro — am going to show you the wonders and joys of gaming.”

“I know how to play games, Yuuji,” Choso flatly replies, though there’s a warmth to his tone no matter when he speaks to Itadori.

The pink-haired boy shakes his head.

“I’m not talking about Life or Trouble or, ugh, Monopoly — though you can technically play them on a console.”

Choso’s brows slide high: really?

“Yeah, really.”

“Huh.”

The man with the black strip over his nose tests the weight of the console controller in his hand, lip slightly pouted.

“So what do you… do?”

“Press buttons, mostly.”

Itadori holds up his own decked-out controller — a modified neon blue and black masterpiece that glows in the dark — and presses a few of the buttons to show him.

“You’ll get used to it. Trust me, it’s way easier in practice.”

Sitting beside his brother with crossed legs, he triggers the console to wake up to its dashboard.

The game show disappears, and a brilliant burst of color takes over the screen.

The reaction is priceless — Choso’s eyes widen to the size of saucers.

Aw, yeah, he has him interested now.

“Do you play these games with your friends?” Choso asks quietly, poking at a button with his thumb.

“Sometimes,” Itadori replies. “Fushiguro isn’t a fan of them. Nobara gets way too competitive. Like… scary competitive. We limit her screen time.”

Choso snorts. “I can picture that.”

Itadori grins and opens up a few window menus so he can set up a profile for Choso on his console.

He hands over his main controller and gestures to Choso.

“Pick whatever profile photo you want.”

Sticking his tongue to the left in the exact way Itadori does when he’s concentrating, Choso flicks over the right joystick to search through the images.

“Itadori?”

“Yeah, Choso?”

“I don’t see my face.”

“Huh?”

“The photographs.” Choso points to the screen. “Where am I?”

Itadori blinks before he realizes.

“Oh! You… don’t, ha. You pick a character.” He pauses. “Like how you choose a thimble or a car and stuff in Monopoly.”

Choso sucks in a sharp inhale and nods in understanding before fluttering through a few more options with more confidence.

He settles over a photo of Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series before clicking it.

“Like this?”

“What, you like Lara?”

“Is that her name?”

“Yeah, she’s kinda super badass.” Itadori takes back the controller to finish up his profile. “My one online friend really likes those games—”

Then, brilliance hits him.

It doesn’t happen often, but today?

Itadori strikes gold.

“Oh, hey — if you want, you can kinda see how me and my one friend play. She’s usually on at this hour. Here.”

He pauses to reach around the couch only to hold out a headset for Choso to take.

“Wear this. It’s my spare.”

With that same inquisitive squint, Choso observes at the headphones with scrutiny.

Itadori showcases how to put them on, popping his RGB headset over his head and squishing his pink hair to his head.

It takes a little finessing with his hairstyle, but Choso does the same. He lets the headphones sit on his head and doesn’t move.

“You good?”

“What?” Choso’s voice shouts over the noise-cancelling feature.

“I said are you—” Itadori pauses, holding up a thumbs up.

Choso blinks. Then his thumb raises.

Good.

Itadori blinks back to the television screen where he signs on as himself — YuuMasterGeneral — before searching for a particular name on his friends list.

Truth be told, he’s only ever talked to this girl.

He has no clue what she looks like in person because he’s never met her in person, but she sounds pretty nice.

After Grandpa got sick, there wasn’t much to do around the house.

Sitting in a quiet house wasn’t cutting it, so Itadori tried his hand at online gaming lobbies.

Most of them sucked.

Most of them were full of assholes.

But he got lucky — an older girl that went by the moniker of Iris was nice enough to join his team.

That first night, they talked for hours about nothing in particular. Eventually he told her about his grandpa, and she added him as a friend. Iris told him to poke her whenever she was on so he had someone to play with.

Honestly? It was exactly the kind of lifeline he needed at the time.

After that, he gamed with Iris pretty regularly. Although they mostly game, sometimes they chat about their other hobbies. He's learned she has a full-time job, just recently graduating from university. A few times she's given a sprinkle of real life advice, from an adult figuring it out a couple of steps ahead of a teenager.

He felt safe. Seen.

He and Iris have been friends ever since.

Iris was good at gaming. Like, impossibly good.

So good she’d probably even beat Nobara.

But she wasn’t obnoxious about her wins, which was why Itadori enjoyed chatting with her so much.

Last time he talked to her was maybe six weeks ago. She’d been busy with her day job, but Itadori had been really busy with… well, everything to do with sorcery.

Surely she wouldn’t get weirded out about showing his older brother the ropes, right?

Iris was a private person, something Itadori could very respect, but he felt comfortable enough to invite her into this little debacle of his life now that Choso was going to be a permanent member of his family.

IRISSIRI IS ONLINE.

“Oh, cool, she’s on.”

“Who?” Choso asks, pushing a headphone off of his ear so he can hear Yuuji properly.

“My friend, Iris,” Itadori explains as he clicks to invite her to a party chat.

He then adds Choso, whose eyes widen at the magical sound of his little brother’s voice suddenly coming through the headset clear as day.

“This sounds…” 

Choso trails off, blinking as he hears the echo of his own voice.

Itadori laughs and leans over to mess with his settings once more. 

“Sorry — gotta mute yourself, buddy, otherwise we’ll get an echo going.”

Then a tiny chime sounds, and the brothers simultaneously stare at the television.

“Hello?”

Her voice is smooth as honey and soft, like she’s surprised to get the call.

Itadori immediately perks up, but he notices how Choso doesn’t move.

He just… stares, lips parted.

“Iris!” he greets excitedly. “Hey! Long time, no chat.”

“Yuuji,” she greets in return with a small smile in her voice. “Hey, no kidding. How’s it going? And who’s this…. Guest, person?”

“Oh — I haven’t given him a username yet. Iris, I wanted you to meet my big brother, Choso. Choso, this is my online friend Iris.”

He turns his head to look at Choso in the glow of the tv, but his brows furrow when he notices the pale complexion of Choso’s face turn a warm pink.

“Choso?” she asks, and Choso’s throat bobs.

Maybe he’s nervous about new people?

He’s never really been that nervous before.

“I didn’t know you had siblings!”

“Ha, yeah, it’s a complicated situation,” Itadori explains before flicking up his microphone stick so he can whisper directly to Choso: “You can speak in the microphone, you know.”

Choso clears his throat, his pink face turning scarlet in stark contrast to the black stripe across the bridge of his nose, before nodding. 

“....I’m his big brother.”

“Cool, cool,” she chides in return, and Itadori can’t even believe what he’s seeing:

His older brother practically melts in his seat as he presses a hand gently to his headphone as if to push it closer to his ear.

"It’s super nice to meet you, big brother Choso.”

Choso bites his lower lip and glances up at the screen. “You… have a really pretty voice—”

Uh oh.

Abort mission.

Itadori flies off of the end of the couch to quickly flick his microphone up to mute them both for a little familial aside. “Dude!”

Choso’s surprised, still sporting the blush. 

“What?”

“You can’t hit on my online friend!”

“I wasn’t hitting anyone, I was talking!” Choso hisses right back under his breath.

“Hitting on, not hitting!"

"Whatever!"

"Look: telling my friend she has a pretty voice is a little weird, okay?”

Suddenly the man looks a little worried. “It is?”

Itadori nods. “Yeah. Girls get bothered online all the time. Just… be cool.” 

He slowly drops his microphone back down.

Choso deflates and nods.

“Sorry about that! Yeah, no, he’s never played video games before so I thought we could show him how it’s done.”

“It's fine. But wait: he’s never played video games before?” Iris asks over her mic with a little laugh. “Seriously?”

Choso smiles small at that.

It’s lopsided and goofy. 

Itadori feels like he’s in the twilight zone.

“Did he live under a rock?” she adds in a gentle tease.

“Something like that.” Yuuji tells her, quickly loading up Fortnite for a game of Duos so Choso can listen and watch. “He’ll just hang with us while we play, if that’s cool with you?”

“So long as he doesn’t mind me asking him questions while we play,” Iris replies, sending a quick game invite to Itadori’s screen.

Both Itadori and Choso stare at one another.

Choso points at himself.

Itadori nods and points at him.

“Me?” Choso asks in a bit of a confused voice.

“Well, I’ve known your little brother for two years now, but I don’t exactly know you, ” Iris explains. “In a way, I kinda felt like his far-away big sister, so I'm happy to know he's got someone looking after him. So how old are you?”

Choso sits up a little taller.

“I'm one hundred and fif—”

“The same age as you!” Itadori chirps, cutting Choso off. “He’s twenty five.”

He can not have his normie friends find out about curse spirits and all of that insanity.

Itadori’s just grateful Sukuna never appeared cackling at his cheek in the middle of an intense match to make a pass out of bad taste.

Choso looks absolutely confused, but he slowly nods in tandem with Itadori’s pleading nod.

“...yes, I am... twenty-five years old.”

“Sweet, same age,” Iris chirps, and that goofy little look shows up on Choso’s face again.

(What gives, dude?!)

“And you’ve never played a single game before?” she asks as they load into the next lobby.

“I like Life.”

“The board game?”

“Yeah.”

“I was so bad at that game.”

“The spinner can really put you in debt,” Choso agrees with a solemn nod—

And Iris giggles.

Itadori blinks.

As he departs his character from the sky bus at the location Iris placed on the map, his lips begin to pull down to a grimace.

He’s never heard her laugh like that.

Not even when she's put toxic guys to shame and made them rage quit in Call of Duty.

“How did you meet my younger brother?” Choso asks, suddenly emboldened by the laugh.

“We met in a Destiny 2 lobby, actually,” Iris explains happily. “He helped me with a few of my bigger raids. When I found out the kid was fifteen-something, I felt like I had to make sure no one was a jerk to him in any future lobbies.”

“So you protected him?” Choso murmurs with surprise.

“More like shepherded him through games, sorta like a—”

“—big sister would,” Choso finishes for her.

“Kind of! Like I said earlier, Yuuji’s a good kid. And he’s really solid at playing games.” Iris clears her throat. “Yuuji, six o’clock. There is a drop over there.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

“Yuuji.”

“Miss!” Itadori corrects. “I mean Miss!”

“Jesus, he acts like I’m fifty sometimes,” Iris bemoans, and Choso smirks.

“Yeah. He acts like I’m a hundred and fifty,” the older man cheekily replies, and Itadori scowls.

On Itadori’s screen, they watch as a potential enemy rounds the corner of the building Itadori’s looting —

He doesn't act fast enough to attack —

But suddenly they fall to their knees, before bursting into confetti with all of their items strewn about.

K.O. 

They both hear Iris whistle from her microphone. 

“Respect your elders, kid.”

“Thanks, Eye. I didn’t realize there were people on my spot,” Itadori chimes.

Yeah.

Because he’s too busy listening to Choso act like he’s going to eat the mic to get closer to Iris —

And the fact that his online friend, his very normal friend, is giggling the way some girls giggle whenever…

They look…

At Gojo-sensei.

Itadori stops moving his thumbs on the controller, too deep in thought to play as Iris carries them.

She's scoping perimeters while he's busy putting the puzzle pieces together.

He's blushing.

She's giggling.

His Mikasa Ackerman avatar gets shot down, and Iris is shouting that she's coming back to save him —

But his eyes are on the guy opposite to him on the couch staring intently.

Not at the game, no.

At Iris’ little avatar that shows up every time she speaks.

Her icon's a little chibi Lara Croft.

Kind of like his generic Lara Croft icon.

Some weirdly-fated choice in a sea of happenstances.

Huh.

Wait a second.

"Hey, Choso, do you mind taking over for me in the next game?"

Choso whips his attention, eyes widening with uncertainty. "Me?"

Iris laughs again, and Itadori sees it in real-time: that butterfly-in-your-stomach goofy face, smack dab on Choso's lips.

"I'm down if you're down, Choso."

Quickly he takes the glowing controller from his younger brother and straightens up. "I can learn."

"Just don't go running off on me on the map, alright?" Iris requests playfully. "Stick with me and we'll easily get to last twenty."

"I won't fail you," Choso promises with a nod.

Itadori crosses his arms, observing and listening to Iris explain the game gently to Choso.

Although she was just as gentle with him, Itadori can hear something different in her voice. It's like she's trying to get Choso to answer her so he can talk. She asks him questions that will get him to talk more and more, until they're having a full-blown conversation without Itadori in sight.

Interesting.

He likes her voice, that much he's deduced.

But does she like his voice, too?

Something's happening here.

The cogs are turning.

Maybe —

Just maybe —

Yuuji Itadori can actually be a real, bonafide wingman.

.

[trulybetty]

Sunday | Week In Review I

So in order to try and be consistent with this, I’ve kept a running Notes page open to keep track of my week.

As I mentioned last week, I don’t expect this every week, I am me. But I am going to keep trying to make an effort to support my fellow creators.

If there’s something you’ve enjoyed this week, please feel to reblog this and tag me so I can check it out and share 💙

Also, not that I feel it needs to be said, but this is a reflection of what I have personally read and enjoyed.

B x

Truly Betty Updates This Week…

New York Part I (Marcus Pike x f!reader)

Fics I Enjoyed This Week…

Conversations with a Movie Star | Chapter 1 by @gnpwdrnwhiskey Even if you’re not a fan of Dieter Bravo, the dialogue in this alone is worth checking out this opening chapter for this new fic. Ava is an OFC down on her luck after being fired, from her families paper no less, and has stumbled across the Bravo Inn… I’ll let Lellen’s writing do the rest

Stripper Jack Trilogy | P. III by @psychedelic-ink The conclusion of maybe the definitive trilogy of trilogies? I don’t think anyone had Stripper Jack on their 2023 bingo cards, but he’s earned his space and I won’t have any arguments on it. 

Hungry Hearts | Chapter by @atinylittlepain Not many Joel AU’s I’ll jump into, but Bruce Springsteen and Joel Miller? Signed myself the fuck up for that as soon as it was announced. The unfolding of Joel and Cherry's relationship in the summer of '86 against them running back into one another 17 years later is such a great dynamic. 

Fall Apart Again | Chapter 1 + 2 by @wildemaven Heidi spoiled us this week, with not one, but TWO chapters of her new Joel fanfic. I don’t think I’ve gotten so emotional over an opening chapter to a fic before like I did with this one! Then the second chapter? Just bury me now… but actually don’t, I want to see the end of this fic first!

The Layover | Chapter 9 by @goodwithcheese How did Megan describe her fanfics? Hallmark movies with smut? She's not wrong. This whole series so far has been a rollercoaster of emotions and keeps delivering each week without fail. Not only are you rooting for Reader + Frankie, but Jules and Santiago anyone? Or maybe just Jules herself because she's just the boss.

Late Night Texts | Chapter 9 by @mvtthewmurdvck I think it's safe to say it's fanfics like Late Night Texts that have got me back in my rom-com/hopeless romantic era. I don't want to give too much away if you've not had the pleasure of reading this - but it has all the hallmarks of a good rom-com set on the backdrop of the early 2000s and with Javier Peña. If you're like me and still trying to make your way through Narcos or haven't watched it yet - please don't let it stop you, you won't be sorry!

A Little FaceTime by @stardustandskycrystals I’m still thinking about this fic days later and may have gone back to read it again. Trust me, just read this - you don’t need an explanation or reason, just read it. Even if Javi isn’t your jam (wasn’t on my list before, that’s all changed now) - it won’t disappoint!

Things I’m Looking Forward to Starting…

Decoherence by @prolix-yuy Westworld and Jack ‘Agent Whiskey’ Daniels crossover, yes, please! It is also reminding me that I never finished season one and should do something about it…

Pleased to Meet You by @intheorangebedroom This is a constant on my dash and on my TBR pile for a while with so many good comments - also getting into my Frankie era, so it’s perfect timing!

The Pilot & His Girl by @avastrasposts Been waiting to savour this one! So you’ve got the Last of Us and you’ve got Triple Frontier, two of my favourite things… what happens when you mush them together? You get a wild ride through the outbreak with Frankie & Reader - I cannot wait to get into this!

Visiting by @ladamedusoif This is another regular on my dash and on my TBR that I’m hoping to get stuck into this week. A college AU of Mr. Ben from the SNL sketch. Fully fleshed out and on the backdrop of New England, I’m ready to get swept away with this promise of a slow burn.

The House by @gemmahale A Jack Daniels x OFC (Best Friend) series coming soon focusing on a long-lost friendship, an inheritance, and Jack sounding like the scallion he is? Cannot wait.

Posts I Enjoyed This Week…

@rhoorl’s announcement of their Triple Frontier AU, Delta Landscaping with mood board and logo! The residents of Tumblr won’t know what’s hit the neighbourhood when they roll into town! 

Thanks to @gnpwdrnwhiskey I will never look at baby hippos without thinking of Dieter Bravo

Everyone’s participation in the WIP poll tag game, it was so fun to see my dash just filled with so many creative people and so many amazing ideas! It was a neat peek into everyone’s draft folders!

Things I’ve Enjoyed This Week…

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - FINALLY got to see it this week, and it did not disappoint. Have not stopped thinking about it since!

My rom-com era has returned, and I’m deep into embracing my forgotten love of a good rom-com. So far this week it’s been The Lake House, You’ve Got Mail & Always Be My Baby. Also it gave way to a Keanu Reeves appreciation post, come share your favourite Keanu!

This Week’s Song… Went waaaayyyy back for this one, an amazing album too - the Sterephonics are one of my favourite bands of all time 🩶

Hope everyone has a great Sunday & here's to a new week!

Please feel free to share your own favourites from the week or what you're looking forward to this week - not a tag game, so no pressure for you to share if you're not feeling it ❤️ xx

[plusvanity]

idk if youve done this or want to do this but, any travis headcanons? 👉👈

just love your style of writing. :3

Ofc!!! <3 and thank you very much, you're such a lovely person, I've seen you a lot on my reblogs/ likes and I wanted to thank you for supporting me <3 I honestly HOPE this doesn't sound too weird, haha.

So, here comes Travis:

-Travis is a very soft boy inside but he's masking it very well.

Growing up, he was a pretty curious and active child. He loved his mother to no end as she was the most beautiful, compassionate, generous and gentle soul he ever found in a person. (He realized that a lot later in time)

He'd do anything with her. Play, pray three times a day, thank God for every little beautiful thing in his life, help around and just be the silly little boy that he was.

He always feared his father even though, when he was little, all the punishment was verbal and/or regarding the chores that he hated to do.

(There was tension, hostility and disinterest in his father's behavior but nothing to be too outrageous..Yet. Needles to say, this stayed like this due to his mother's presence in the house that acted as an referee, calming down her demented husband and soothing little Travis's pain away)

Unfortunately from here, things only go dark and.. blindly assuming that u know what I'm talking about lol, here's the part when Travis mothers gets ill, the cult doesn't do anything about it, Travis is way too young and insignificant in this whole equation to do anything himself and... she eventually dies.

-Travis's first trauma hits harder than his father's slap.

Now, young Travis found himself in a very disturbing and visceral reality. It might all seem like a horrible nightmare (and that's how he saw it back then) but unfortunately it's not.

Dissociation was his only way out. No, he didn't develop the full DID, but his massive trauma triggered his brain to such an extent that it needed to shut down lots of processes in hope to self-preservate and get away from the pain. (This is the easiest way I can explain it but of you're curious in HOW utterly shocking the whole process is, search on Google 'brain neuroimaginy while dissociating' and you'll see that the cerebral activity shrinks to almost no activity at all)

He went on living with this whole disaster on his shoulders, suppressing the trauma as much as he could.

Nobody was on his side, nobody acknowledged that what they 'let happen' was absolutely immoral and cruel. Nobody fucking admitted they were wrong.

Classic religious approach for 'Meh, SHE wasn't meant to be, I guess???'

- Now, alone with his barely-wanted son, the passive-aggressive treatment began to escalate into nasty shit.

Travis got much more involved in the church community, now with a stable role in the church's chorus and as his father's 'right hand'. Their dynamics never screamed 'abuse' from a distance... or maybe it did but that's how ignorant the church community was????

Punishments moved from verbal abuse and degradation to physical. Fists, kicks, hair pulling and dragging across the floor (This one is bad, believe me for a fucking reason lol) and food interdiction.

-With no way around or soul to listen to his pain, he kept everything inside, locked the misery with a key, crossed his fingers and hoped for it to.... miraculously dissolve overnight?????

-First romantic interest.

I wouldn't really call it a 'romantic interest' as he was a middle-schooler BUT first crush.

It was a boy his age that he befriended within the church community.

The little attention, compassion and fun they had, quickly unlocked the emotional burden on Travis's heart. In a naive and very impressionable state of mind, Travis found himself pouring his heart out to that boy. He told him the things he wasn't supposed to tell anyone in hope for understatement and more compassion.

Not gonna lie, it made the other kid feel very weird and confused. He didn't say too much, thing that made Travis's heart..... ache.

The second Worst Day of His Life quickly came when Travis, naively assuming that the other boy had mutual feelings for him, made the worst mistake.

The kiss was like a blink of an eye.. and the kid went broadcasting the event to everyone around the church.

When Travis's father found out it was...bad to say the least. The rage, the shame and the disappointment for his brat of a son came in bloody fists, kicks and bruises.

That day, it teached Travis an important lesson in life. 'Don't you ever open up'

As the things escalated, fear naturally turns into hate. Hurt turns into rage (you see where this is going) and he begins to harden up.

-Travis puts on a mask but... not so much really?

His anger is almost unbearable. The steam and fuel drives him to act as a semi-copy of his father, crashing on small prey, in his case, Sal's gang (with Sal especially as a target) This reaction is natural and expectable from a deeply traumatized kid.

Jealousy acts as a reassuring factor that 'Yes, he needs to slash and burn the blue haired boy'

He uses all the slurs and insults that destroyed him as a weapon because in the end, he doesn't hate Sal. He hates himself.

-He desires happiness, human relationships, closure and security. He does. He misses his mother so much, he'd rip his heart apart to see her one more time.. he seeks comfort, softness and understanding in Sal. He sees the love he needs the most and he's utterly incapacitated to chaise that love. Not when he treated Sal this way for all these years.

-Travis lets someone in, learns a healthy coping mechanism and earns a valuable friend.

When Travis and Sal get close, Travis explodes with everything that hurt him, narrating Sal his whole damn life, finally allowing himself vulnerability for the first time in the eyes of a true caring person.

-Travis follows the journey of healing without hating himself and allows Sal to guide him through the process.

Travis has a very long way to go but he finally realizes that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Generational trauma is a new perspective that he needs to explore in hope to give himself a bit of comfort. 'It's not you personally that they try to bring down, it's anyone in your place that will experience this conflict'.

He comes to terms with how beyond repair his father's roots and beliefs are and he tries his best to distance himself from the misery... as much as his still-minor position allows him.

It's all about making it livable for now..

-Travis learns to value his new friendship with Sal more than he desires a relationship.

Some happier trivia now.???

-Travis is pretty good at singing!

-Travis gets to love David Bowie because he reminds him of the time Sal sang and played 'Heroes' for him. The song and the meaning grew inside his mind as one of the best memories and happiest moments of his life.

Another song that he listens and laughs a bit in irony is: Modern Love. "Never gonna fall for (modern love) Walks beside me (modern love) Walks on by (modern love) Gets me to the church on time (church on time)' it's about Sal, obv :3

-Travis used to get involved around school activities too to put on the 'Pretty Preacher's Son' mask to simulate false-perfection but he grew out of it thanks to Sal.

-Travis loves long walks and talking and laughing at silly little things.

-Travis vision on religion:

Part-time atheist, Part-time believer. The religious trauma and guilt is not something that he'll ever grow out of. It's something that can't be changed and in order to survive, he needs to change his life vision.

There are times when he hates God, blames him for turning his back when he was suffering. There are times when he still clings to the idea that there's something out there, something that... brought Sal in his life. There are times when he sees Christianity as nothing but a mass-controlling copied and revamped religion imported from Egypt that instead of bringing the people closer to God, it actually alienates them because of all the punishment and un-bendable rules that made the Bible be the fucking Bible.

It makes people selfish, judgy and look down on other religion because FUCK U if u don't think like me- broken mentality.

Alright, I genuinely HOPE this is a bit of a more in-depth analysis of Travis and his contradictory personality. If you feel like asking anything, feel free to do so! I doubt that this post is fully readable lol.

Anyway, have a great day!! <3 :3

[ikissjesse]

could you do some aaron t/aaron z headcanons pls!

omg yes ofc !! ty for the request <333 since 3 ppl requested aaron² hc's (nothing specific) im gonna put all ur requests into this once post !!

tags: @i-need-a-slurpee @hrts4ariana ( note as of writing: this was a draft from 1719817282 years ago so if u forgot abt this n no longer wanted to be tagged im sorry🥲 )

as i mentioned in this post, they both adore musicals, especially hamilton

aaron² hc's !!

reblogs appreciated + reqs open <3

they like listening to the soundtracks together when they hangout

sometimes when there's a musical near where they are on tour they go together in their free time

u didn't hear it from me but they held hands during one of these musicals bc the room was dark n they thought noone would notice

as bros, ofc.. homies hold hands during musicals !!

they totally sing non-stop from hamilton together its cannon bc i say so

anyway enough abt hamilton for now

there was def mutual pining

they were both like "fuckidishcoaoxjaoa he just thinks of me as a friend"

"friend" NO HE WANTS U SO BAD -God probably idk

the way they attempted to "drop hints":

t tried to make z laugh a lot, even more than he usually did

pranks became less extreme than they normally were, he wanted to surprise him, not scare him to death like he used to

z would, although he denies this, try to do basketball tricks to impress t whenever he is at the basketball court w him

both of them went to jesse for advice, not knowing the other was doing the same

"hey jesse uhm- what should i do if, theoretically, ihavearlybigcrushonsomeonewhoiveknownforawhilebutithinktheyseemeasafriendandireallyreallyREALLYwannabemorebutidontwannaruinourfriendship????" -t

"...what?" -jesse

needless to say jesse was confused as hell

he sent him off w some advice after t slowed down enough for him to understand, then about 15 minutes later z came rambling about the same thing

"JESSE YOU'RE A HIT WITH THE LADIES, AND THE GAYS, AND..BASICALLY ANYONE. HOW DO I FLIRT WITH SOMEONE IVE KNOWN FOR AGES WHO IM PRETTY SURE SEES ME AS JUST A FRIEND?????" -z

thats what made it click for jesse, n he just laughed at the realization

giving him the same advice he gave t, he snickered at the idea of the aarons having a crush on eachother but being too stupid blind to see the feelings were mutual

"thanks jess!!" -z to jesse, running off

"yeah no problem man hehehshshehsh goodluck! HEHEHHEHE"

building up as much courage as he could, z eventually made the first move a few days later

he asked t if he'd like to join him for a musical that would take place at a nearby theater, n he gladly accepted

little did t know where this would lead <33 achoo anyways

as the lights dimmed during a 'romantic' scene, aaron z took t's hand in his own n (quietly) confessed his feelings towards his long-time bestfriend

saying t was happy would be an understatement

the energetic boy yanked him into a hug, leaving his stoic counterpart(ner) highly confused and extremely flustered

choking from t's tight embrace, his face became beet red

"Im, uhm- assuming you feel the same?"

well NO FUCKIN WAY SHERLOCK WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT -God again probably

"yeah dumbass, ofcourse i do!" t whisper-yelled, trying to keep his excitement down as they were still in a theater after all !!!

after that, z just smiled n wrapped his arms around t's waist, returning the hug

but wait !! theres more !!

what kind of ikissjesse ship post would this be without cute couple hc's ???

the quiet stoic boy x loud energetic boy dynamic UUGF MY HEART I THINK IM DYIBG from how much i love this duo😔😔

z buys t a baseball cap in EVERY city/country they go to. every fucking one

even if its not a band tour, if z is out somewhere n sees a cool cap he thinks t would like, yall better believe this boy would cut off an arm n sell a kidney just for t to get that hat

t has a whole side in his closet dedicated to these hats z buys him, he finds it absolutely adorable

z actually thinks he isnt good at gift giving, so he was afraid t wouldnt like it at first, but t's reaction is enough conformation that he adores it

now what kinda aaron² hamilton lover truther would i be if i didnt mention the musical again 💪💪

they have FREQUENT hamilton marathons together, sometimes the other members of 4*town will join in too !!

they still sortve act like they did before, like friends n what not

however theyre also 300% more flirty

by that i mean T is 300% more flirty

z might be a LITTLE bit but def not as much as my boy aaron t (the r in aaron stands for rizzler -aaron t)

z isn't a big fan of PDA himself, however when t does little displays of affection when theyre in public he loves it ( he doesn't say it out loud bc he's shy but he does smile at t or to himself, holding t's hand or draping an arm over his shoulders )

when theyre in private z will hug t from behind, hold his waist, kiss his forehead, etc .... yk... bro stuff......

t surprises him by going BOO!!! and jumping up to put his arms around his shoulders from behind, which at first scared z shitless n earned t a lecture about why he shouldn't scare him like that bc z WILL swing but z is okay with it now n actually smiles ALBEIT A VERY SMALL SMILE when he does it

dates include but r not limited to playing basketball late at night together, movies, watching musicals, roadtrips to literally anywhere long or short they just wanna be in eachothers presence OUGHG I LOVE THEM

i forgot to mention !!! t is definitely the one who asked to be boyfriends, but z accidentally said "I love you" first

t was doing something dumb again, and z shook his head as he laughed, accidentally mumbling the words "I love you" out loud

t stopped dead in his tracks n snapped his head in z's direction, n yall this boy was STRESSED he did NOT mean to let the world know this information

z covered his face with his hands n his face was PINK pink bro but t just laughed n walked over to him, cupping his face in his hands and staring at him with a very VERY smug but genuine n happy grin

z scoffed, but soon glanced back at the other boy and smiled shyly

theyre so cute im throwing up in class

there's more but i think this is long enough for now, sorry for the wait pls snack on this while u wait for the rest of my jesro + aaron² content i have planned WINK WINK

thank u for reading <3

[blorbocedes]

my favorite hetcedes girl!lewis dynamic would be kind of a continuation of 'desire unfolds' by bestliars where girl!lewis (or louise, elle, etc) also hits the wall of women's racing and is like a role reversal of your wag story. I know non racing lewis au's usually have him (or her in this case) go into music or fashion but I can't imagine early 2000s girl!lewis would know that about herself and wouldn't pursue that in time for it to make sense (i feel like for these wags you had to have become famous in your career before your wag status, or else it won't pan out). The Catholic guilt narrative especially without racing in the way would make it so they got married rather young. Their relationship would still be complex and not perfect because I envision in this au nico would still be racing and have 7 or so championships, not because he wants to but because he has to carry the ambition for both of them (2014,15,16,17,18,19,20 is easy to achieve in the Mercedes dominance when you have no teammate competition). I don't think she would want him to stay home and have a happy family and instead be encouraging him to stay in F1 for as much success as she wished she had. And if they did have kids I still think she would be at every race lol. It could also be interesting to explore how that level of dominance and success would contrast with his personality (as i don't think he would be partying it up with hollywood like lewis did during that era, so he wouldn't be F1's figurehead in the same way lewis is today). Also him equaling Michael's championships after how his relationship with Michael was????

But also, I can't creatively write to save my life so this won't be a thing I write lol. I wish I could tell someone my idea and instantly get a fabulous fic back lmao

I also love your toto idea! I know you said that it would be difficult to do girl!nico/lewis because of how he would feel entitled to end up with her, but I think that entitlement and almost cockiness could be an interesting side of him to explore. Especially when he has all the options of women you could want in front of him but he's still expecting Nico to be his. Could be interesting!

I would personally find that super depressing to write because the constant background information of what we know: lewis is the greatest racer of all time, the 7 titles nico is winning is hers and the only reason she can't and is instead known as his wife is due to her sex. ofc not all fics are supposed to be happy and romantic but there's no happy ending beyond lewis having to accept and have her man vicariously living out her dreams (ergo be discontent of that potential What If life forever). you as a reader would pity lewis the whole time

you do raise a good point that she would be too young to know herself yet to get into fashion/music, although probably later in life with nico's money she'd have access to those avenues.

although the idea that nico is the one who wants to retire and be with his family while lewis is the one who keeps pushing him to renew his contract and bribes him with another baby he won't have time to properly see is kind of interesting.

but it's not my flavour, sometimes the more realistic idea is not the better fic. but I would read it if someone wrote it and did the dynamics right

I personally find it easier to do girl!nico hitting the racing ceiling and being perfectly discontent about it because she has so many safety nets, even as Toto's problematically younger gf where the power is imbalanced, she's still the daughter of a world champion, she's still rich, she still graduated from imperial college. with the hetcedes you proposed lewis married young, there's still that class insecurity, that universe's GOAT chose her because they were childhood friends but now he has all the pick of beautiful women in the world should he want (even if he's 100% loyal), and the discontentment would just be too much.

with girl!Nico hetcedes of "lewis still chooses her" it veers too much into traditional heterosexual romance for my taste. but yeah I'd be down to read it someone else wrote it hahaha, there's just a lot of delicate gender power dynamics to keep in mind when doing a gender swap fic and still have it be compelling. a lot of work!

[noahtally-famous]

okay so this was a randomass thought that plopped in my head at 12 in the morning and I’ve decided to make it everybody’s problem, as usual!

I know topher and dave are a rarepair and personally one I never considered other than the occasional acknowledgement when I see a post involving them, but then this dynamic came to mind and now it won’t let go until I discuss it so here we are!

(we’re going off of the idea that both of them are rich kids--dave is def someone I hc as rich; topher is either a rich theater kid or a theater kid in the higher middle-class levels (but I see him more of the former simply bc of his canon demeanor))

so based off of what I mentioned above, literally dave and topher’s dynamic is the ‘rich boy x rich boy’ trope which is fucking funny in general, but it gets better when you take in their individual traits. topher is arrogant, he’s conceited, he’s dramatic, I bet he’s the type to flirt and expect the other person to be smitten immediately like he’s some sort of movie star (if he wasn’t so obsessed with chris); dave is more reserved, he’s awkward, he’s emotional, he can be rude, he’s a romantic, and he doesn’t rlly get the usual cues of society meaning he will misunderstand the heck out of anything.

so you get topher noticing dave through some out-of-the-blue means and casually flirting with him bc it’s what he does and it was just perfect for the situation, and he expects the usual reaction: either a blush or an eyeroll with a concealed smile, but dave gives neither of those; instead, he shoots topher a confused look and basically misunderstands topher’s one-liner immensely and makes the situation awkward. it’s never supposed to mean anything more than a oneliner, but dave’s lack of “proper reaction” gives topher whiplash and he’s all “oh, we’re playing hard to get, are we?” to himself and he decides to accept that challenge, and it’s just fucking shenanigans from there on. 

like yes, topher still is obsessed with chris and wants the guy to notice him, that’s still a thing and the whole deal with him wanting to host the show is also still there, but he also transfers more or less that same interest to dave too; he wants dave to notice him and be impressed and give topher that reaction he’s waiting for. but dave doesn’t, he just raises his eyebrows, or misunderstands more, and everyone else is so confused as to why topher’s all over this guy, flirting with him and shit, and they think topher likes dave, but rlly he just wants dave to fucking blush or smth goddammit (but when he says that to his team, everyone’s like ~oh?~ 🤨). meanwhile dave is a mix of confused and oblivious.

and then over time, without either of them realizing, they start to grow on one another. topher goes out of his way to find dave and talk to him not just for the reaction but also bc he likes seeing the reactions dave does give him, he likes engaging in petty back-and-forth with the guy; dave previously thought topher was being patronizing or just plain confusing, but then he grows on him, and that fateful day arrives when he’s like ‘oh shit, do I like him?’

and there’s bonding, ofc, bc since they’re both rich kids, there’s bound to be repressed issues relating to them--but that happens much later on; not only that, the two start to genuinely help each other, regardless of being on different teams, when previously they only initiated convo to tease each other, and that’s when things start to get serious, bc it’s not just lighthearted fun anymore, it’s getting deeper.

(legit I’ve a whole scenario partway hashed out involving these two during tdpi starting from the first episode to ‘three zones and a baby’ when topher is eliminated, which I lowkey wanna post too so I might if I get the time to actually write it all out!)

[paintingformike]

How do you think Mike storyline will be in s5? With himself,El and Will and with him be the heart of the party? You think Mike and El will break up and then? How he will understand his real feelings?

hmm the duffers said s5 is going to cycle back to s1 dynamics so for the most part i do think the party will be teamed up (and i think i read in an interview somewhere that according to the duffers’ words they said “the original group of boys plus el”?) and mike will reclaim his leader role again just like he did in s1. i think the painting foreshadowed how mike was going to be the heart of the party and be the group’s main guide again in s5. obviously mike and will are gonna be attached to the hip again and their scenes together will be more blatantly romantic in nature now. i think mike and el will break up either on ep 1 or ep 2, and this is where mike would bring up the painting and question things because it did mislead him into believing el still needed him and had all these feelings for him, and its like he felt all that from the painting she dedicated to him...only for him to be broken up like days later? then el would be visibly confused and have no idea what he’s talking about, leading to mike realizing she never commissioned it.

i’ve talked about this before but the painting will be one of the main sources of conflict for mike and he’ll spend the entire season agonizing about it and attempting to uncover the full truth. he’s going to keep bringing it up to will and would probably be constantly shut down because will either refuses to breach that topic or they’ll use the beloved interruption trope again 🫶 i think mike and will are going to have a lot of moments that would build up to mike having his “oh” moment, maybe hand holds and almost kisses? 🤔 throughout this we’ll see mike in the process of coming to terms with his feelings (if he hasn’t already).

i also think somewhere in the middle of the season mike is going to get tormented by vecna and thats where all his inner conflicts will be revealed, how he desperately tried to conform and seem grown up, only for the truth (according to vecna) to be that he’s still just that “immature” kid he wanted to outgrow, that he’ll never have the “normal” image he tried to build for himself because the truth was that he wanted the same things will did (playing games with him for the rest of their lives aka spending forever with him) and ofc because he’s actually queer and has been in love with will this whole time.

by the end of the season he’ll have accepted himself and his feelings, how he doesn’t need to conform or pretend to be someone he’s not, and how he deserves to be loved just for who he is and not for his usefulness to other people (because he’ll also find out his love for will is requited!). i imagine that the moment the full truth of the painting is revealed to him, there will be a sequence of flashbacks to byler moments from previous seasons that show mike’s unwavering devotion and love for will, how he stopped at nothing to bring his best friend back and believed in him the most, how he was the only one to stay by will’s side and not make him feel weak, all those moments of him caring for will and being attuned to his emotions.

anyways that’s how i think his arc is going to play out in s5! it’s going to be heavily intertwined with will’s and that’s why it’s impossible to close their arcs without each other.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi!

I have a character (Character A) who has taken a vow of silence until they meet a certain goal, and who isn't very social/didn't talk much prior and will be the same way when they do achieve that goal and are 'freed' from their vow. I was trying to plan out a romantic interest (Character B) for them, and was wondering if you thought it would be insensitive in any way for Character B to be mute? I was thinking that one of their initial draws to one another be Character A appreciating that Character B doesn't try to get them to speak (it's an issue they face often), and Character B liking that Character A signs so easily with them and that communication doesn't feel stilted or awkward. I'm planning for them to be actually attracted to one another and click well outside of that ofc, and really don't intend to make the whole vow of silence/mute thing central, but I wanted to get opinions on if the dynamic itself is ableist or offensive in any way!

Vow of Silence and Nonspeaking Characters

Lots to tackle here so bear with me! :)

1 - "Mute" is Offensive - The word "mute" is an outdated and offensive term for people who do not speak. The more accurate and preferred term is "nonspeaking," so make sure to use that instead.

2 - Vow of Silence = No Communication - A vow of silence doesn't just mean you can't speak out loud, it means you don't communicate, which includes texting, sending e-mails, writing letters, and yes... using sign language. The point of a vow of silence is typically to free yourself of the burden of communication, either to clear mental space for meditation, thought, or focus. So, if your character is using sign language to speak with others, or for others to speak with them, that's not a true vow of silence.

3 - Not Speaking Doesn't Make Sign Language Easier - I'm a little concerned about your mindset that Character A would find the communication between them and B to "not feel stilted or awkward." Just because Character A has chosen not to speak via a vow of silence, that doesn't make them truly nonspeaking or make it any easier for them to learn, use, or understand sign language. They still need to learn sign language and practice it, and since they haven't had nearly as much practice speaking it as Character B, it probably will be a little stilted and awkward until Character A has been speaking it a while. Just as would be the case with any other language.

4 - This Feels Too Close to Magical Healing - Of all the ableist things a writer can do, one of the worst is to use magic to heal a disability. And even though that's not what's happening here, taking away a character's ability to speak, having them get by using sign language, then later returning their ability to speak--it still has the same effect.

5 - Ultimately, You Have to Ask Those Who Matter - Although this gives me all kinds of red flags, I'm not nonspeaking, so while I can point out issues like offensive terminology or ableist tropes, it's not my place to say whether or not this would be harmful or offensive to nonspeaking people. It's quite possible that a nonspeaking person would say, "I'd love to see a story like this, but here's what you need to change..." I don't know. The only way you can know for sure is to find a nonspeaking sensitivity reader who can give you their perspective. But, if you're not willing to or not able to, I think I'd probably keep working on this idea some more. :)

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[wendytestabrat]

Hello! I’ve been making a big google doc explaining why I think Kyman is an intended ship and the subtext involving their relationship, however I hit a roadblock when I heard about Trey and Matt’s commentary at the end of the Imaginationland Trilogy. Trey said that Cartman only wants to humiliate Kyle but that there’s nothing more going on, however there are so many different pieces of information that clearly point towards this claim as false. Your amazing long ass posts about Kyman are the reason I started believing it’s canon, so I was wondering what you have to say about this dilemma??

well first of all i’ve said before how kyman may not even be canon and a lot of it is just trolling from matt & trey making jokes about them being gay bc it’s funny lol and yeah the imaginationland is def not meant to be taken seriously that whole plot with cartman trying to get kyle to suck his balls was clearly just humorous lol. but ofc there have been more serious kyman moments later on where shit gets all emotional so that’s when i started being more led to believe there’s def more going on especially with the drama in s20. it could be possible that all these gay moments started out as a joke like cartman making kyle suck his balls or making kyle stick his finger up his ass and all that LOL, but then when people started to notice this shit was a pattern and suspecting cartman is gay especially in s11 maybe matt & trey decided to take kyman more srsly later on and just run with it lol. they might just enjoy writing stories with deep romantic or passionate subtexts in them bc their dynamic is fun, but they may not want to actually make them a couple over fear it would ruin the show. as someone who’s written screenplays myself writers tend to just write from their own experiences and use it as an outlet to let out their complex emotions through their characters. sometimes things can turn out a certain way in ur work that the people who absorb it will interpret and dissect a certain way but it meant something completely different to the writer when they wrote it bc these complexes the writer has tends to come out in subconscious ways in the characters’ actions. so i think when they were explaining that episode they were just explaining the plot as they wrote it that cartman was trying to get kyle to suck his balls to humiliate him (bc cartman consciously doesn’t understand that he was doing that for gay reasons). and when u write simply from a character and their goals and motivations (which is typically where all good screenwriters start by figuring out what their main character’s goal is in the story and what they’re trying to accomplish, for cartman his goal was to get kyle to suck his balls to ‘humiliate’ him), other complexities will end up coming out of the story and you kind of learn more about your own character as you go lol. i tend to joke around that screenwriting is basically the introverted version of acting. in acting you have to get into your character in some way by relating parts of urself in them, like when a director tells an actor to cry in the scene by remembering something sad that happened to them if you know what i mean lol. screenwriting is the same way you’re writing dialogue that the characters say by putting yourself in the shoes of the character and understanding their perspective. it’s like improv acting, you get into a character come up with some lines and learn more about your own character as u go on. a theory i’ve had (i shouldn’t be talking abt this bc it’s fucked up to speculate abt someone’s sexuality publicly LOL) is that all these subliminal gay scenes between cartman and kyle has just been trey writing any unresolved gay feelings he has for matt. (and matt voices kyle, but i mean i’m not the first to speculate this there was also that lazy joke they cut from family guy about it, matt & trey may have even joked about them being a couple too) they’re two men who work very closely together so it wouldn’t surprise me if thoughts like that pop up every now and then. and i def feel like cartman is loosely based on trey, obviously stan is the character he based off himself but i def feel like there’s some of him in cartman too which is also why he voices cartman. i def feel like trey’s more lighthearted funny side is what he lets out through cartman also the side of him that’s scheming in business (i mean how do you think south park became such a huge franchise? this didn’t happen by chance lol) which we also see through cartman.

[scattered-winter]

respectfully requesting newt from maze runner for the character meme !!

bro you've Awakened Something in me it's been far too long since I've talked about my boy my babygirl my blorbo

favorite thing about him

his selflessness!!! throughout all the events of the series (both the books AND the movies) he's consistently putting everyone else's needs before his own. he was one of the leaders of the Glade, which meant he worked day and night to keep the order and safety there. and outside the Glade, he pulled his own weight and even put himself in danger to protect the others on several occasions (saving Minho from the lightning storm is what immediately comes to mind but I know there's a lot more). and even in the death cure, when the flare is taking over and he can feel himself changing, he still stays focused and doesn't let that distract him or anyone else from the end goal. to me it's just....heartbreaking, really. he suffered in silence because he didn't want his friends to grieve him while he was still standing there, and so he had to deal with slowly losing his mind by himself

least favorite thing about him

his SELFLESSNESS

listen I can love and hate the same thing about a guy

the fact that he was so focused on the group's survival just added so much more angst to the story and it causes me PAINNNN. like!! in the movies specifically, they were SO CLOSE to giving him the cure!!!!!!!!! they were so achingly close!!!!!!!! but he'd been fighting the virus for so long and it finally took over and he died only moments before the cure arrived. I'm fukcijgn

favorite line

"great, we're all bloody inspired"

brOTP

Minho and Newt are BESTIES ok. they're besties. I cry about them every day. they're besties

same with Alby and Newt they were! leaders together! and neither of them made it out! I'm unwell!

actually on that same note. I think Minho was the oldest Glader to have made it out alive. all his friends and mentors who came before him are dead. I'm so fucking emo right now

honestly I love all of Newt's canon friendships! his friendship with Thomas is GREAT his friendship with the other Gladers is GREAT

nOTP

meh nothing really....strikes me as a nOTP tbh. in fact I don't really actively ship anyone in this series! usually when I hard-core ship something, it's because I felt unsatisfied with the media/felt like it's an interesting dynamic to be explored. I was fairly satisfied with the series as a whole and I felt like the overall point of them was complete without romance, and to add a lot of romance (excluding the thomas/teresa thomas/brenda stuff that was already there) would have just....blocked out the horror and morally gray themes, ya know? so idk I don't really have strong feelings about any romantic pairings in this specific piece of media

in fact, I saw someone point out that it would've been a stronger and more potent narrative if Thomas and Teresa were SIBLINGS instead of romantic partners and tbh that hasn't left my brain because they're RIGHT. it would've been soooo compelling ughh I'm going insane just thinking about the parallels here

OTP

all that being said, it's kinda fun to play with the narratives a bit :] most of the fic I intend to write in this fandom is friendship/family based, because of my feelings as stated above, but I'm not immune to the newtmas or minewt here <3 there's just something about two best friends who have been through hell and worse together getting to kiss <3

random headcanon

Newt actually left notes for EVERYONE, not just Thomas. he even left one with Thomas intended for Teresa, despite everything she'd done, but ofc she never got the chance to read it so Thomas just kept it in a pocket by his heart. and maybe one day, years later, after he finally found some semblance of peace and healing, he burned it to ash to finally say goodbye to them both

unpopular opinion

listen I love Newt but the fandom has a tendency to shove Minho aside to make room for him (especially hardcore newtmas shippers) which is... :/ let's all examine why that might be !

song I associate with him

Doom Days by Bastille. warning: you will cry.

favorite picture of him

hair floof <3 he's so blorbo shaped here idk

send me a character!

[amagicdoctor]

A while back an anon asked if I could give an update on Iron Fist's and Hellcat's status with Doctor Strange and I was finally able to look into it! I have not been keeping up with comics, let along secondary characters to the blog like Danny and Patsy, so doing research on these dudes really helped a lot.

With Danny, I discovered that he is no longer the Iron Fist (*See Iron Fist [2022])! He gave up the mantle and his superpowers during some incident last year. Y'all know Doctor Strange has gone through the non-magic scenario a thousand times, so I'm sure he's definitely there for Danny to adjust to life as a non-super superhero. And, as y'all may have learned from my previous discussion about Stephen and Danny's relationship, they're pretty close, so Danny's still an active resident to the sanctum where he visits at least once a week, which is way more frequent in comparison to Wanda and Kurt (who have the whole Krakoa/work thing they have to deal with right now).

With Patsy, I discovered that she and Tony had been in a romantic relationship for a while now. Very recently, in Iron Man (2020) #20, Tony proposed to her, but in a later issue, including Iron Man/Hellcat Annual (2022) #1, Patsy turned him down and revealed that while she loved him, she was not ready for marriage. I feel as though Patsy and Stephen have the kind of relationship where they have that daddy/daughter dynamic, but they're also best friends. Patsy relies on Stephen for a whole lot and vice versa, they're really good friends that go way back. Remember, they have a lot of the same superhero background: dealing with demons and dumb@ss romantic partners. And now there's the fact that they both have Tony in common (learn more about Tony's relationship with Stephen here) too! So you bet Patsy would have told Stephen all about it giving him all the tea.

The Annual #1 issue left Patsy in San Francisco to live in a haunted family home. I think she's spending her time there to think about her next steps: both her romantic feelings and the rest of her life. But I still feel as though she would be there for Stephen. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, Wanda, Kurt (and ofc Wong) are away at work most of the time. There aren't a lot of people monitoring Stephen at home (not counting Bats), and having someone at home for Stephen is important because he gets himself involved in a lot of crap. Hellcat has a huge background in magic and demons, so she would be able to confront any issue by Stephen's side. But on a more emotional level, it's important for Stephen to have another human in the house so he can also have someone to talk to. Because of this, out of everyone in the family, Patsy is the person who visits the sanctum at least once a day. So Patsy and Stephen's relationship is still going strong to this day!

Let me know if there's anything more you guys need me to look into, whether it's for Danny and Patsy, or some other character. Posts like these are generally different from most other asks, where I format it like I'm writing out an essay of information, so if this is a response you need to an ask, make sure you mention that in your message. If there's anything I need to clarify in this post, please tell me as well. The ask box is open and so are my DMs.

[glassesandswords]

Hi, Ness! Do you think Hange and Levi were more than friends? I think there were some deeper feelings, however, unfortunately, there was no correct time for them 😭

Dear anon, I suggest you take a good look at my blog and then look at me in the eye and ask this again lmao 😂

Okay but objectively speaking- well, as objectively as my shipper heart could- I think that they got off on a little rocky start as comrades in the beginning (with their clashing personalities and all), and later turned into bffs who complemented and trusted each other perfectly.

After the retaking of Wall Maria, however, I think they did develop deeper feelings, which is pretty natural since they were literally the only two left of the old guard. There are so many instances of the two of them being protective over the other post Shiganshina.

Also, there's a symbolic parallel of the two of them retaining the opposite eyes- which I personally think is no mere coincidence in a story so heavy on symbolism. It's almost as if they are halves of a whole, but in a way where the two of them are their own person first. This is peak soulmate symbolism if you ask me.

People can choose to view Levihan platonically or romantically, but either way, their bond ran deep and no one can deny that. I read a post recently with a person saying that levihan are like two bffs with a pact similar to "Well, if we stay single till 40, let's just marry each other" and I kinda think it suits them well? Because they have almost never been overtly, directly romantic (well, except the forest confession/blush scene ofc, but some people somehow manage to read that platonically too so, eh well, whatever floats your boat ig) but the way they show love and care to each other is through acts of service, unshakable trust, and absolute loyalty.

To those who go 'can you stop shipping them, you're ruining a good 🌟friendship🌟', here's a news flash- best friends can develop feelings for each other. Levihan are the perfect material for the bffs-to-lovers trope imo, but even if they were only bffs, that still wouldn't reduce their bond or their dynamic to something any less in my eyes.

In canonverse, both of them put their duty towards humanity first and their own feelings aside, which is exactly why they did not run away in that forest to live low-key, knowing that the rest of the world would get destroyed if they did as their heart desired. All said and done, there's more than enough canon proof that they loved each other selflessly and I 100% believe that had Hange been alive, the two of them would have lived together post-rumbling. We (and they) were robbed of their domestic cottagecore life.

Dammit Yams. 😭

[makiema]

finally finished writing about how much stormbringer enhances the skk dynamic which was at a nascent stage in Fifteen and anticipates the developments which happen later and culminate in Dead Apple where the faith they have in each other is absolutely remarkable! the fact that i said i’d do this in a few hours yesterday but it took me like 24 hrs to finish i have an attention span of a whole 2 minutes 💀

my favorite thing about stormbringer is that it actually builds up on the concepts/themes introduced in Fifteen so it's a glimpse into what has changed in dazai and dazai & dhuuya after one year of being together. As much as it's about chuuya confronting his past and his identity this is also about dazai’s development from who he was in fifteen. chuuya and rimbaud both left their marks on dazai and in Stormbringer we see him, actually trying to emulate or follow in a sense a way of life, that chuuya and rimbaud represented. Stormbringer is not just about chuuya, abt his test of humanity, or he coming in terms with who or what he is. it's about dazai too. it's about dazai developing or at least attempting to develop what he calls “boyish”/ “ordinary” in Fifteen. its not about chuya having an identity crisis. in fact what we understand from Code 04's last section is that chuuya never considered it as his crisis and neither did dazai. so to dazai “saving chuuya is important, human or not doesn't matter” and when dazai gives chuuya time to think abt what the operation will cost him chuuya doesnt so much as flinch form his purpose. This goes on to show unlike verlaine he doesnt care about memory and certainly doesnt consider it as the only determinant of someone being human. He cares more abt yokohama and his friends and in that, in caring abt his “family”, he is just as human as the next person. whether he’s factually human or not comes secondary to his desire to save people. This is a message that the quality of being human has more to do with embodying human qualities or humanity than having memories and lineage. so yeah stormbringer is essentially about embracing humanity but this happens on 2 levels: both chuuya and dazai embrace humanity. Going back to the boyish or ordinary bit, im talking abt this segment:

here dazai is shocked because he assumed everyone “gangsta” and everyone crazy powerful delighted in homicide, in deliberately indulging in the macabre. but he is proved wrong. He logically concluded that anyone with power more than average and belonging to the underground would kill people and delight in that because it’s a given they lack any kind of moral understanding. To that end, they’d be exalted at the prospect of relentlessly shooting a dead body, mutilating it and dishonoring it. The mafia code (any general mafia code) works in a way where honor and death goes hand in hand. So only the lowest of the low would do that to a dying person, who even when faced with certain death is loyal to his own organisation. This really shows that even within the mafia dazai is the only person whos like the devil incarnate. So yeah dazai at this sate far lower than even a mafia member. But chuuya who actually embodiess the mafia code and is incredibly loyal to his organisation and “family” [ putting family in quotes bc he himself calls his friends family 🥺] ofc kicks the gun away. From dazai’s pov chuuya being as insanely powerful as he is should also do the same. But chuuya comes along and suggests that even enemies should be shown respect where it’s due. And that is what an ordinary person, oblivious to mafia life (mafia life as in waht dazai makes of it) thinks. So in undermining the binary between “ordinary” and “mafia” chuuya proves that being mafia doesnt necessarily mean selling your soul to the devil and giving up the last smidge of humanity. In fact by embodying qualities like compassion and kindness and mutual respect, you can make the mafia a better place for yourself and for the other members. Now in Stormbringer, we see how this affected dazai. here dazai is introduced as someone mercilessly killing to set up the channel. 

Now to expand the channel one would need to keep doing it right? To mercilessly kill ppl and stuff but instead what he does is hand the channel over to chuuya bc he knows chuuya wouldnt handle it like him. im not suggesting that dazai miraculously becomes v good or anything with dazai the key words is “try” or “to some extent” like in Fifteen when Chuuya asks “do u wanna live” he’s like “ not to that extent”. similarly its not to say he doesnt kill people anymore. it is that he tries to lessen the number of casualties by handing over one of the most troublesome channels to chuuya who would manage it in a much more humane way. That dazai draws from his friends/at least tries to is smth we’ll see again later on when he deals with akutagawa. He talks about odasaku and ofc its baffling to him that a mafia member as powerful as him would be taking acre of orphans. and dazai says but he cant afford to be that kind and proceeds to shoot akutagswa but again does so in a calculated way such that he doesnt end up killing him ( im NOT justifying dazai’s abuse not at all im just saying that its hard to believe he coincidentally knew the exact no of bullets that aku could block. and had odasaku’s words and his way of life not been in the back of his mind he could’ve ended up killing aku) coming back to chuuya and dazai we also see him avoiding further conversation on the jewelry channel thing as he says “leave that for now”. He does a similar thing again when mori brings up the concept of double suiciding with chuuya.

 Its a HUGE thing for him to digest that him suiciding would inevitably spell the doom for chuuya. this puts an unimaginable responsibility on him. And he avoids further discussion on this. Now we know dazai is the rambly type. Even in the most dire moments he goe son with his LOONG monologues so really he is the last person who’d avoid a conversation but he deliberately does it in these 2 instances because its hard for him to grasp these things. That he can go against his nature and do a conscientious thing by handing over one of the most grisly channels to chuuya (i dont think dazai’s nature is evil. Or even if it is, its a a social construct keeping in mind the war ravaged times or its mori’s construct because he does exploit dazai to the hilt. but dazai ofc thinks of himself as non-human, devious. perfectly devilish...etc.) And also the fact that someone as suicidal as him is actually responsible for the life of someone else is really too much to take in. a whole 10 seconds pause indicates just how much he was thrown off when mori opened his eyes to the reality of things: if he dies, chuuya inexorably dies as a consequence. also i dont think the “wow” here or the next bit :

is something jokey. if it was like haha double suicide with chuuya is the worst haha wanna do it w pretty lady kind of a deal. that pause would have been unnecessary. dazai’s immediate reaction would’ve been whining and shit. the use of “froze” too implies the gravity of the situation. so ofc what is “wow” is how much meaning his life has for someone else. and for some so much....better than him. and what is unacceptable is this sad, sad truth that his life (to which he ascribes no value) would be so inextricably linked with someone else’s and hold so much meaning to them. it is like when a suicidal person at the brink of suicide understanding his life is not his own. his life and death holds consequences for ppl surrounding him. so both of these are huge things to grasp and at both these times dazai is visibly shaken up so much so that he doesnt want to do his favorite thing- ramble in a condescending tone. smth he does in so many instances. this really is a testimony to the fact that things are changing in him. the redemption process has begun. he’s no longer the kind of maniac he was before he encountered chuuya. when zuko underwent his transition in atla he was so shaken up after one (1) right decision he had a fever. i think this is true for anyone who’s trying to change. change is after all a huge thing for everyone. ofc he’ll be unsettled. so anyways this is proof that he has indeed come a long way from being someone who revelled at the prospect of meaningless bloodshed.

now coming to the concept of love he assumes he’d get sick of love and die:

and that death is the singular goal worth chasing after because it makes you feel more alive/get a fuller picture of what living entails. but here he is erring by supposing love is something that’ll bore him/have no meaning. and it cant provide him that “something” he’s looking for. at this point he hasn’t loved so he doesnt know whether he’ll be sick of it or if it'll have no impact. And yet he’s morose and regretful. this is a kind of self-imposed constraint hes putting on himself. he cancels out the v idea of love because hes convinced it isnt worth it. he hasnt even been in love okay scratch being in love that sounds romantic and i really dont mean love in a romantic sense here...its just love. in general. any form is cool. anyway so dazai is not familiar with any kind of love. He is entirely alien to the concept. he doesnt even know what a friend/partner is so he doesnt know what love is. this is cleared out here when rimbaud confesses he did everything for paul and dazai is unconvinced:

chuuya ofc admonishes him and shuts him up for good, he says dazai has no right lookind down upon smth he doesnt understand. he doesnt understand friendship, love. or loyalty. or how important those feelings are at this point. now this situation is turned on its head in stormbringer. but before we go into that let’s look at the message rimbaud had for both of them. ik he specifically asks for chuuya to “live” but there’s purpose behind including both of them in the frame. it’s a message they should both take to heart. and at the end of it its implied both are changed after hearing it:

and in this message the first bit is for chuuya. what he says is basically memory doesn’t make u human... ”you are you” just a frame or not doesnt matter. and even if hes just a frame, he is still beautiful. beauty actually is a v important concept in literature starting right from Plato to Shakespeare. i’d not bring this here but because bsd is so deeply rooted in literature i feel like the reference to beauty, and later on to soul and even warmth and also the universal tone of this message carries some meaning. so the thing is  both Plato and Shakespeare were endorsed the idea of love as a force awakened in the world by beauty which then leads the soul to perfection. so humans and by extension, all life are beautiful frames that can inspire love. this concept is also there in Romantic poetry like Keats and Wordsworth all of them talked about loving beauty in nature and how that can elevate the body mind and soul. so essentially in telling this to chuuya what ehe basically means is that chuuya just by being him, by being a beautiful framework can inspire love and warmth in others and thats a great purpose! how much chuuya understands of this purpose with his one (1) braincell and his low self esteem is questionable but he gets some sense of belonging. now this is a two way relationship so ofc dazai has to be factored in. he comes in the next part: 

these are from 2 different translation so the disparity im sorry ;-; but anyway,  this last part abt the world being a cold place. then paul. then “warmth” is a message to dazai who’s been introduced to us as cold-hearted and having like no bearings of a human being. this is the reason why its important for both o f them to be there. now going back to chuuya being a beautiful framework, the framework can be beautiful in so far as its beauty is appreciate by someone and inspires warmth and love in someone. this again is the whole beauty/beholder nature/the romantic concept that is there in shakespeare and in Romantic poetry where both are a part of a codependent relationship. so what rimbaud implies here is that dazai can have that kind of a relationship with another person (chuuya) just like rimbaud had with paul which makes him warm and the world doesnt feel cold anymore. rimbaud has no regrets about what he did because. so the idea is that dazai and chuuya can share the same dynamic. also after this, the narrative says that their hearts are now changed and wont return to what they were before....and even their souls are refined in a way. but in Fifteen we dont have a concrete proof of how this happened bc the novel ends at this point. Instead, Stormbringer shows exactly how deep the impact of those words is: 

this is the third instance of dazai showing hesitation and once again this has to do with chuuya. the seed of the dynamic that rimbaud was talking about  is already germinating in him. his reactions, his fidgeting, his hesitancy, in response to chuuya’s situation is such a big contrast to his cocksure self when he’s conversing with adam and verlaine. after this of course we have: 

not only does he clearly express his concern but he gives chuuya 2 whole mins to make a decision and based on that he’s prepared to overturn the operation. the success rate of an alternative plan will ofc be lesser than the og one but that doesnt faze dazai. he’s ready to turn the tide for chuuya’s sake and if this is not development idk what is. just a year ago, he was someone to whom the concept of rimbaud going thru all that trouble for his friend was a lost concept. ironically enough, now he finds himself doing something that is along the same lines. he puts chuuya above his mission. to him, chuuya is more important than getting a satisfactory result. another bit that i wanna talk abt is that one controversial section where dazai says he’ll save chuuya, human or not, and then the justification is: 

i think a lot of people got mad bc of this and honestly at first glance i was peeved too. as a chuuya stan some of the shit dazai has done so far did rub me the wrong way. i love skk obv but still those were moments that kind of left a bad taste in the mouth. i’ll discuss them later on bc stormbringer helps allay that feeling. coming back to the “i wanna see chuuya suffer” part firstly context is important. ofc someone like dazai cant be expected to be upfront about his feelings with ppl (or AI) he barely knows. so what be relays to adam, is only partly true and its actually a kind of a twist in concept. the things is, and this is  smth dazai knows all too well is that ppl suffer simply on account of being human. human suffering is brought on because humans, by virtue of being humans, feel. so when he says he’s willing to acknowledge chuuya as human despite what N and Verlaine said he’s already admitting that chuuya suffers. so there is really nothing “new” to see for him. he knows chuuya suffers already and he does too because they’re both humans trying to make it thru their messed up lives. also chuuya “ceasing to be human” is a p huge concern for him bc he himself is like that. just like with the suicide thing, it bothers dazai when someone else shares his situation/his fate like as long as his life is his own, he has no problem ending it whenever but the situation is complicated when someone else’s life span is determined by that decision. and similarly, as long as he is “no longer human” its not that much of an issue because he’s like resigned to a doomed fate but someone like chuuya ceasing to be human or worse yet never getting to know if hes human or not are pressing matters. so anyways what he actually means here is that in saving chuuya, he saves someone who suffers just like he does and in their case, even the cause of suffering boils down to a shared psychological conflict: what essentially constitutes being human and if im human or not. now this sharing of pain and suffering is the foundation of forming a connection with someone, which makes life a little better. here again, what rimaud imparted to dazai and chuuya is driven home. also dazai’s key anxiety is not finding meaning/anything. this “anything” can be assumed to be something that justifies life. so all his anxiety and frustration stems from the fact that there really is no discernible meaning to be found in the mechanism of life. so it is an empty pursuit because it is true that nothing can explain why feelings of pain and suffering are exponentially heavier than feelings of happiness or why after getting to experience one (1) free day we’re back to square one where life is grueling. these are questions that really dont have an answer so every time dazai like gazes into the abyss and says he didnt  find anything, he is not so much asking if he’ll ever find anything as swallowing the hard truth that there is nothing to be found, no singular entity exists that can magically justify everything. again drawing upon literature or philosophy more specifically, there’s a concept called Absurdism which says the only philosophical truth so to say is this that life is absurd and looking for meaning is futile. instead what we can do is accept that it is absurd and deal with it in the best way possible, by finding little sources and moments of happiness, and strewing them together so we feel somewhat content. even if it is just for a fleeting second. and this happiness/contentment amidst a wretched life (altho temporal) can be found in friendship, in sharing, and even in having fun with people you’re comfortable with! this is actually why dazai wants to save chuuya and now it may seem like im interpreting his words through the shipping lens but thats not so and it can be corroborated by looking into dazai’s words to odasaku. after chuuya, dazai’s next attempt at friendship was odasaku who he found “interesting”. now when odasaku sort of like threw hands and chose death over having to live a life without the orphans, dazai tried to stop him not by saying stuff like life is good. and things will def change for the better. but instead he admits that living is hard and the sense of void is ubiquitous and yet he doesnt want him to  up and die because then he would be sad. because the little comfort that he got from odasaku and something he probably assumed odasaku also got from him would be gone. [how much odasaku considered dazai a source of comfort remains unclear. in fact the reason odasaku gave up and died was because he did not have this. this feeling of sharing in someone else’s suffering and seeking comfort in friends in the real world. instead he was too vested in his ideal world. his over reliance on an entirely idealistic concept is actually what pushed him over the edge. and this would have been the case for dazai too had he not encountered and sought comfort and companionship in chuuya and eventually in odasaku ] so this again goes on to show how rimbaud’s words changed dazai’s heart. and in a way dazai really has been doing this unconsciously form the v beginning like by teasing chuuya continually in Fifteen. you dont expect someone as cold as him to indulge in friendly bickering and taunting so often but he does. that there is significance and even happiness in that is something he learns over time, after rimbaud’s words to him. although these things seem futile on the surface they give a moment’s respite. so although chuuya spinning dazai on a rope in stormbringer might seem weird to everyone, they still serve a purpose:  

what shirase puts forward is particularly relevant here because neither dazai nor chuuya is fully aware of the extent of their feelings (or even what those feelings are like they dont know what label to put. so typical oblivious lovers) for each other or what they stand to gain just by driving each other nuts but there is something intangible but satisfying to be felt. a kind of contentment that helps him continue. one day at a time. there is no one great “thing” that can make him like wake up one day feeling like he doesnt want to die ever again. but again like i said before, the key word for dazai is “extent” so, these little things to some extent contribute to a sense of fulfilment which helps him keep death at bay. thats why he’s bent on saving chuuya bc he knows they can share in their suffering and make life better for each other. its not like he wants chuuya to suffer. chuuya will suffer nonetheless like every other human. but in suffering together there is something to be found so he doesnt want him to cease being human. 

this covers more or less the intertextuality between Stormbringer and Fifteen. i just wanna talk a bit more about a couple other moments in Stormbringer that i feel are p important because they put some things in the series in perspective and also made the dead apple moment 10x more emotional 🥺 one thing that really strikes me is the absolute fanon level of comfort that dazai and chuuya share in Strombringer. its like scenes form k-drama lol. 

so yeah this stuff. compare this with dazai’s reaction @atsushi when he drops im not saying that its not just a joke and that what im saying should be the right way to look at this contrast. its not like that at all. but what this does is give an estimate to the readers just how close and comfortable dazai feels when its chuuya. and this plus everything i rambling on abt for so long also gives us an estimate about the sincerity of dazais feelings. now 2 things always bothered me : the fact that dazai actually left chuuya and the fact that after the fight against lovecraft he actualy deserted him (this again can ofc be construed as just a humorous bit but still it did leave a bad taste in my mouth) dazai leaving the mafia is ofc something he had to do to fulfil oda’s dying wish but it still dint sit right with me that he would abandon chuuya. just like oda levaing is harder on dazai, dazai leaving is harder on chuuya. its always harder on the one left behind. so anyway, these sorts of things sometimes made me doubt dazai’s feelings but now that stormbringer clears it all up i do think there is a larger motif at work here. when mori offers dazai to come back to the mafia in s2 we see him saying that it was mori who kicked him out and that he did so because he was afraid dazai would usurp his position. so he set it up in a way that dazai would be forced to leave but on his own accord. now more than usurpation i believe what mori really did fear is that dazai had no allegiance to the mafia (which is actually true) bc he doesnt have that sense of loyalty and that to him his friends were more important than swearing allegiance to mori. (which again is true). so by getting oda killed, the message that mori seemed to be giving out was if dazai didnt leave he would do it again. and if we consider ango’s betrayal which had already transpired at that point, the one mori would next target to sort of get at dazai would inevitably be chuuya. this is only conjecture but still, i do believe this might as well be true because then it would explain why dazai didnt carry chuuya back to the base after their fight [something he was v comfortable doing in Stormbringer. in fact in the first case he carries chuuya back to the billiards bar and not to the mafia’s base so he could hear albatross’ last words 🥺] its because mori needs to know unlike dazai, chuuya is absolutely loyal to him which regrettably he is. it kinda becomes imperative therefore on part of dazai to make it seem that way to mori. that they really are at each others throats and that dazai is insignificant to chuuya. and that the mafia comes before dazai. (which is not true bc we see chuuya protecting his friend [shirase] while also staying loyal to the mafia in Stormbringer) 

mori also in his own way tries to provoke hostility b/w them like in Dead Dpple when he was all like yeah so dazai is the star and chuuya is merely bait. so it kinda makes sense if dazai left the mafia not only to like do good work but also to protect chuuya from mori. also the fact that chuuya did the same thing— left the Sheep and joined PM to protect Shirase from the mafia makes be believe that my speculation is plausible given all the parallels we find between dazai and chuuya. 

and the last bit is about the brilliant Dead Apple scene and how much added context it gets in light of Stormbringer. 

in this scene dazai first says: “you used Corruption believing in me?” and then the translation is “how beautiful” which is an okay translation but the exact thing dazai said was “nakasetekurerune” which literally is : youre gonna make me cry you know? now my knowledge of japanese is like duolingo level but i do know “nakasete” has to do with crying and “kureru” is used by the receiver to indicate he’s receiving a feeling/object from someone close. so basically chuuya trusting him is something so beautiful that it could almost move him to tears. now lets look at dazai’s intro in Stormbringer:

dazai, being dazai, ofc would be able to tell genuine trust from fealty out of fear so ofc the fact that chuuya has this kind of blind faith in him is overwhelming for him. also stormbringer really expands on the sight effects of Corruption in full detail. its so PAINFUL and to think that chuuya would jump into it right away for dazai’s sake.....no wonder he is so soft when deactivating him. and then he proceeds to flirt for a little bit with the Snow White and the kiss of life reference. but this flirting doesnt seem even a little out of place now. it doesn't feel like smth meaningless or smth that dazai is just saying as a joke. that there is absoluetly no subtext to making a statement like that. instead that kind of flirting feels like smth inspired from a deep, deep familiarity with someone who really shares his heart and soul. when he talks to chuuya abt the problem of not knowing whether he is human or not, it is a problem that is as central to him as it’s to chuuya. not feeling fully reconciled to a human identity is a problem thats fundamental to both of them. I don’t think familiarity gets any deeper than this where you share the exact same psychological problem. so its really wonderful how we can trace the skk development now: what starts out as a crush on part of dazai or not a crush exactly rather, a feeling of perplexed admiration because chuuya is breathtakingly beautiful inside out, eventually gain all these layers and develops into something meaningful where they have so much faith in each other and where they literally help each other live. knowing someone out there shares your exact issue so you’re really not alone in this is perhaps the greatest comfort in the world. also now its clear how both of them would have turned out had they not met each other and had they not taken in rimbaud’s advice. chuuya in his desire to learn about himself and frustration at not being able to do the same would have perhaps spiralled downward and ended up becoming like verlaine. he is his double here after all. and had dazai not seen chuuya up close being the wonderful person he is, he too would have probably ended up developing a god complex and becoming like fyodor. dazai is there to save chuuya literally from dying a monster and chuuya is there to remind him he too can try and mend his ways and embrace his human side. after all chuuya has so much trust him in! (despite him having questionable methods) for both of them, it starts out as an attempt to be more human, then establishing a fruitful partnership, and finally coming in terms with their feelings to some extent. for dazai, he’s comfortable enough to engage in occasional flirting at this point and for chuuya it’s playing along with dazai’s antics (well with the ones he get 💀 pretty boy has half a functional braincell) and openly showing his concern for him. so really by confirming their feelings what strombringer does is enhance the skk development in a way that Dead Apple doesnt seem like fan service anymore. the fact that dazai would casually flirt or be comfortable with chuuya landing on his crotch 💀 all that isnt as ridiculous as it first seemed because stormbringer lays the groundwork and anticipates all the intimate/flirty skk moments that have happened till now and ig will happen again soon. 

[snickerdoodlles]

hi... what are ur thoughts on waikorn!!

ayyy waikorn!! 👀

i like em!! i'm not super invested in them as a romantic ship (if there's any official waikorn romance in canon, i hope it's not anything more than maybe a reveal for why they might like each other or an 'oh' moment). i don't really care for 'pair the spares' tropes so i hope their budding relationship stays open and a little vague on where it falls on the romance/friendship spectrum after ep12 since it's not super developed atm and i worry it'd just be rushed otherwise

that said i!! rly enjoy their dynamic!! they're a v fun drama bitch/goodest lad duo and their interactions are?? hilarious??? i LIVE for moments like what we got in ep10 where korn teases wai and wai reluctantly falling in friendship with him. their whole dynamic is basically *korn voice* why do i like this ASSHOLE ugh / *wai 1yr later* WHY do i LIKE this asshole UGH, and im a huge sucker for that kind of vibe

gonna drop some waikorn headcanons here because ofc i have a bunch, hope u dont mind nonny 😂❤

wai's nosy, but korn can sniff out 85% of your secrets

you know that moment in ep4 that goes like korn: what about your crush in architecture? / pat: my what

yeah

korn: so i see you have a new crush~ wai materializing over his shoulder carrying popcorn: ooOoOOoO

talk shit, get hit duo

korn plays wai like a fiddle with the three magic words: "what, you chicken?"

korn: yeah okay. you're at a 9 right now, im gonna need you to bring it down to like a 3 / wai: bitch im a 12

korn's the friend that always has anything you need, wai's the friend that forgets everything he needs ("im so hungry" "here's a snack" "shit i just spilled my coffee" "i gotchu here's tide-to-go" "*gets bloody nose*" "*offers tampon*" "HOW")

wai: i just tried to use a meditation app and got stressed out korn: ........................dude

anyways yeah, i luv them, hoping they'll have some more moments together in canon XD

[manikas-whims]

Shadow & Bone, The Crows & everyone's complaints

So now that I'm on my 2nd watch of the show, I wanna speak on certain things about the Crows in the show, which have made many people mad and some of which I didn't like either..but which I can still see as tying up with the canon.

⚠ Spoilers for both the Books & Show ⚠

Here we go:

• Kaz accepting the 1M Kruge job

Now ofc we all remember the book Kaz who bargained with a Mercher and raised his prize to 30M. But Leigh, Eric & the Crows Cast has been pointing out since day one that these aren't the same people we know from what we've read. This is a sort of prequel to those characters and just them figuring out their dynamic with each other.

Remember, the book opens with Inej saying Kaz is a feared man in the Barrel without hesitation, she introduces herself as the Wraith who can't be stopped even by gravity on certain days and Jesper as the amazing sharpshooter and charmer.

Now as a new reader, I found that chapter sort of funny because how are you claiming all this without showing me their process of becoming these formidable people? But as I read through, the thought that inded these are 6 dangerous outcasts, settled in my mind.

But before that 30M job, they must've had many smaller conquests too right? Ones which slowly built-up their experience, confidence and relationships.

Since this is a prequel, consider this as another day in their Barrel life, as them going on another of their regular jobs. And just think of this as a learning experience for Kaz. That its the dangers that they got into travelling to a different country that made Kaz learn his and his crew's worth. And prepared him for the negotiations he did with Jan Van Eck in SoC.

• Kaz brought to his knees by Pekka

While Kaz being bested by two mere lackies of Pekka was kinda annoying to me as well, why do we believe that Pekka can't harm him or the others? PEKKA ROLLINS WAS THE BARREL KING BEFORE KAZ.

Remember on the Ferolind when Oomen tells them he was ordered by Pekka Rollins to take down the Dregs? They all were shocked and somewhat worried. And it was brought up later on when Jesper said they were going against Pekka Rollins and Wylan explains for Matthias sake how Pekka is not to be messed with.

It was only Kaz who wasn't concerned at all, who consoles Jesper by saying Pekka is just another Barrel Boss.

And what were we even expecting Kaz to do when Pekka brought him to his knees? Didn't Kaz express in the books enough how a simple beating won't make it up. He promised to take his revenge in small steps— building up his gang, stealing customers from Pekka's clubs, etc. BRICK BY BRICK.

So Kaz can be brought down to his knees too. And Pekka can easily do it if he wishes so. But no one wants outright Gang Wars; Pekka because he is far more experienced and knows when and where to put pressure or when to let go of a job. He even advices Kaz to forget Inej and drop the idea of going against a Mercher in SoC last chapter, because it is a foolish thing to do.

And Kaz wouldn't want gang wars because he knows the Dregs aren't big enough to face the whole of Dime Lions. Besides he already plans to bring down Pekka brick by brick.

But no one threatens Kaz Brekker, so consider this "on his knees" scene as a set up and another reason for Kaz to strike back and pay back tenfold.

It will also serve as an amazing parallel if we get to see him make Pekka beg on his knees.

• Kaz and Inej are too obvious

Are they? Haven't they always been like that when in each other's company or when around the other Crows? So of course they're expressing alot in front of Jesper.

But note that there are was no incident in the show where Kaz expressed his slowly developing feelings in front of his enemies, namely Pekka. In fact all Kanej moments happen only between them or in Jesper's presence. So there's nothing wrong with that.

Are they too obvious? No. As I said before and as we all know Kaz and Inej ALWAYS share deep conversations whenever together even in books— "i will have you without armor", "i would come for you", etc.

So show Kaz telling Inej "no saints have watched over me like you.." was not much different from their canon alone conversations.

Have they shown too much already? NOT AT ALL.

We only saw Kaz putting the Crow Club on collateral but his reason behind it wasn't shown at all.

We only saw Inej kill a man to protect Kaz. We don't know why she chose to kill for him. You can't immediately translate that to love. It can very well be considered her trying to pay back because he saved her from the Menagerie.

Remember in Crooked Kingdom Chapter 4, Inej says: "their lives had been a series of rescues ever since, a string of debts that they never tallied as they saved each other again and again."

So consider these moments as their endless back and forth of saving each other.

*Another thing to note in the show is when Inej gave her knives to Kaz. She says: "as a friend once said".

She has started considering Kaz a "friend" and she knows he feels the same way even though he won't say it. They're only starting to open up and give way to friendship. And not just Kanej, Jesper too.

People can care for and have each other's backs without it having a romantic aspect. The show gave the viewers a peek at what Kanej are willing to do for each other and showed that there's obviously sparks flying but no clear motto. We still didn't see Kanej's first encounter at the Menagerie or Kaz staring at Inej sitting on his window. These are just small moments to set up the ship.

• The Crows only there for comic relief

NO. I don't agree to this at all.

I'm gonna go back to SoC Duology. Now we know both the books have a sort of a dark setting. But both of these books also had hilarious moments.

Right in Chapter 2 of SoC, Jesper joking about spelling with his bullets and Kaz joining in on the joke. There's also the "this whole shoot me thing is starting to worry me". Inej & Kaz's banter about "greed is your god".

Almost every chapter had atleast one moment that was either comical or to lighten the mood or just straight up banter between the Crows. And all those moments were all always entagled with serious ones.

The show did exactly the same. We were given their crime life because they were after all, on a job to capture and sell off a person. But the show lightened it by adding the Crows banter and certain comical moments. And for the finishing touches, they sprinkled in some vulnerability.

• Kaz not being ruthless enough

I AGREE. I DO.

What the fuck is wrong with us all wanting a sinister man being ruthless? 😂

There's not much I can say about this but that even in books, Kaz isn't always ruthless.

He is mostly giving out orders and scheming schemes. But in those rare moments in the book when we get to see Dirtyhands, we are given a view into some really intense moments.

When Kaz dislocates a man's arm in the Ice Court Prison, he himself admits it that he didn't do it as much to make himself look intimidating to the other criminals but more to remind himself that he can do it, that he isn't some helpless man.

The only such thing we got in the show was the brief scene between Kaz and that Inferni where he had that scary look on his face as he crushed that inferni's arm and slammed his face.

WE DID DESERVE MORE OF THAT.

But maybe it was a good moment to set him up for more violence in the coming seasons. *crosses fingers*

• The Crows not stealing from Alina

Okay whilst Inej wouldn't do it, Jesper may only consider, Kaz would definitely do it!

Remember Kaz kazually conversing with Van Eck and Pekka but also stealing their stuff in those moments with his slight of hands?

Yeah, the showrunners had a perfect chance at the end to do it but they missed it 😐

This is probably the one thing that I'm unable to settle with 🤧

So..that's it!

I don't want everyone to agree with me but I hope everyone can be a little less aggressive and more kind to the show. It was still amazing, if not a proper adaptation then at least good as a standalone show. And the showrunners already did say "high budget fanfiction"